Реферат по теме " British Inventions that Changed the World"

Great British Inventions

that Changed the World

Content

Introduction

1. Why are British so Good at Inventing Things?
2.  Early  Inventions ( 12-17th centuries)

1. The English Language
2. Invention of the Pencil
3. Newton’s Laws

3. Why was  Great Britain the first to Industrialize?
4.  Inventions  of the beginning of the 19th century

4.1. Theory of   Evolution

4.2.  Steam    Locomotive

4.3.  Programmable Computer

5. Victorian Inventions

5.1.

6. The Latest  Inventions

Conclusion

List of  Literature

Introduction

Have you ever dreamed of  becoming a great inventor— of having a fantastically clever idea that changes society for the better and makes you rich in the process? The history of technology is, in many ways, a story of great inventors and their brilliant inventions. 

What is invention?  That sounds like a trivial question, but it's worth pausing a moment to consider what "invention" really means. In one of the dictionaries, it says an inventor is someone who comes up with an idea for the first time. In another, an inventor is described as a person of "unique intuition or genius" who devises an original product, process, or machine. Dictionary definitions like these are badly out of date—and probably always have been. Since at least the time of Thomas Edison (the mid-to-late 19th century), invention has been as much about manufacturing and marketing inventions successfully as about having great ideas in the first place. How and why do people invent things? According to the well-known saying, "mother is the necessity of invention"; in other words, people invent things because society has difficult problems that need solving. There's some truth in this, though less than you might suppose. It would be more accurate to say that inventions succeed when they do useful jobs that people recognize need doing. But the reasons inventions appear in the first place often have little or nothing to do with "necessity," especially in the modern age when virtually every need we have is satisfied by any number of existing gadgets and machines. Where, then, do inventions come from and why do people invent them?

Some inventions appear because of scientific breakthroughs. DNA fingerprinting (the process by which detectives take human samples at crime scenes and use them to identify criminals) is one good example. It only became possible after the mid-20th century when scientists understood what DNA was and how it worked: the scientific discovery made possible the new forensic technology. The same is true of many other inventions. Marconi's technological development of radio followed on directly from the scientific work done by Lodge, Hertz, James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, and numerous other scientists who fathomed out the mysteries of electricity and magnetism during the 19th century. Generally, scientists are more interested in advancing human knowledge than in commercializing their discoveries; it takes a determined entrepreneur like Marconi or Edison to recognize the wider, social value of an idea—and turn theoretical science into practical technology.

But it would be very wrong to suggest that inventions (practical technologies) always follow on from scientific discoveries (often abstract, impractical theories). Many of the world's greatest inventors lacked any scientific training and perfected their ideas through trial and error. The scientific reasons why their inventions succeeded or failed were only discovered long afterward. Engines (which are machines that burn fuel to release heat energy that can make something move) are a good example of this. The first engines, powered by steam, were developed entirely by trial and error in the 18th century by such people as Thomas Newcomen and James Watt. The scientific theory of how these engines worked, and how they could be improved, was only figured out about a century later by Frenchman Nicolas Sadi Carnot. Thomas Edison, one of the most prolific inventors of all time, famously told the world that "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration"; he had little or no scientific training and owed much of his success to persistence and determination (when he came to develop his electric light, he tested no fewer than 6000 different materials to find the perfect filament).

Some inventions are never really invented at all—they have no single inventor. You can comb your way through thousands of years of history, from the abacus to the iPhone, and find not a single person who could indisputably be credited as the sole inventor of the computer. That's because computers are inventions that have evolved over time. People have needed to calculate things for as long as they've traded with one another, but the way we've done this has constantly changed. Mechanical calculators based on levers and gears gave way to electronic calculators in the early decades of the 20th century. As newer, smaller electronic components were developed, computers became smaller too. Now, many of us own cellphones that double-up as pocket computers, but there's no single person we can thank for it. Cars evolved in much the same way. You could thank Henry Ford for making them popular and affordable, Karl Benz for putting gasoline engines on carts to make motorized carriages, or Nikolaus Otto for inventing modern engines in the first place—but the idea of vehicles running on wheels is thousands of years old and its original inventor (or inventors) has long since disappeared in time.

Some inventions happen through pure luck. When Swiss inventor George De Mestral was walking through the countryside, he noticed how burrs from plants stuck to his clothes and were hard to pull away. That gave him the idea for the brilliant two-part clothing fastener that he called VELCRO®. Another inventor who got lucky was Percy Spencer. He was experimenting with a device called a magnetron, which turns electricity into microwave radiation for radar detectors (used for direction-finding in ships and planes), when he noticed that a chocolate bar in his pocket had started to melt. He realized the microwave radiation was generating heat that was cooking (and melting) the food—and that gave him the idea for the microwave oven. Teflon®, the super-slippery nonstick coating, was also discovered by accident when Roy Plunkett accidentally made some strange white goo in a chemical laboratory. Its amazing nonstick properties were only discovered and put to use later. All these inventions, and numerous others, were chance discoveries produced by accidents or mistakes.

1. WHY ARE BRITISH SO GOOD AT  INVENTING?

It is difficult to imagine, but some people think a part of the reason the British are so good at inventing things is because they are an island race. I’m not so sure I can point to any one particular British characteristic that has encouraged such a great inventing tradition, but their geography certainly has helped. It created its own pressures, separated them intellectually as well as physically from the rest of Europe. It made their relatively affluent, well-educated nation turn to science at a time when the rest of the world did not. It gave them  a head start. The result is that they have an enormous amount of history that we can draw on for inspiration.

They  led the Industrial Revolution, and we can look back with huge respect at all those steps in their engineering and inventive past that make our life today so easy. That past — which BBC2 is celebrating this year with a season of programmes called Genius of Invention — can also fuel the next generation of scientists and inventors. British  universities are world class, with a great history of technology behind them. British  turn out a phenomenal number of Nobel Prize winners, and their   heritage has made them a very open place, ready to embrace talent from around the world. But there is a downside. Perhaps because they are used to getting there first, they constantly fail to commercialize British invention. Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the worldwide web, is rightly applauded for giving his invention to the world — yet on another level it would have been nice if he could have benefited from his work in the way Google’s founders have done. Richard Trevithick is a great example of a man who doesn’t get the recognition he deserves because he failed to commercialise his invention. Attitudes are changing, and nobody  doubts  that their economic future lies in tapping into British inventiveness. Programmes such as Dragons’ Den and figures like Steve Jobs and James Dyson have certainly inspired the children. They want to make things, but they also want to sell things. They want to be entrepreneurs. We need invention now to help pull us out of our current morass, and I’m very hopeful our next generation of inventors is going to do it. To achieve this, we must reconnect with a culture of innovation that served these islands so well in the past: where scientists and inventors are appreciated, and where people see things that inspire them and want to make them even better.

II. Early Invantions ( XII –XVII centuries)

2.1. The English Language

In the 11th century, when the Normans invaded England, only French and Latin was spoken by rulers and clergy, yet the English hung on to their sturdy language. For one hundred years or more books were not written in English, but the English spoke English. They insisted on speaking English. They absorbed French and Latin and Greek words, and added them to English words that came from Old German and Old Norse. They made English richer, more subtle, more precise. The Normans, meanwhile, intermarried with the English, and learned to speak English - playful, pungent, philosophical, practical, poetic English.

This is one of the British people’s greatest achievements and it belongs to all of them, first saving their language from conquest, and then letting it grow freely, with all the people deciding which words they liked, and wanted to keep, and which words they'd scuttle. In the intervening years they have invented and added a million new words, including half million technical and scientific terms. (German has about 185,000 words and French has fewer than 100,000.)

Grosseteste, who also appears in the Freedom Timeline, is one of those who defends the English language. He detests Henry III's court, filled with Frenchmen who "strive to tear the fleece and do not even know the faces of the sheep; they do not understand the English tongue. . ."

English is the second most widely spoken language in the world behind Mandarin. However, it is the official language of more countries worldwide than any other, and the most common second language globally. English is generally used as the intermediary language of choice at global events and international summits. The English language is also the most far reaching language in the world, with native speakers as far spread as Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada and, of course, Great Britain, where the language was born. Every great speech in the long history of the English speaking world, every theory, paper, proposal and design too, share one common thing: the English language. That is why it must be Britain’s most influential invention.

2.2.  Pencil

Did you know that modern pencils owe it all to an ancient Roman writing instrument called a stylus? Scribes used this thin metal rod to leave a light, but readable mark on papyrus (an early form of paper). Other early styluses were made of lead, which is what we still call pencil cores, even though they actually are made of non-toxic graphite. But pencil history doesn’t stop there…

The "lead" pencil (which contains no lead) was invented in 1564 when a huge graphite (black carbon) mine was discovered in Borrowdale, Cumbria, England. The pure graphite was sawn into sheets and then cut into square rods. The graphite rods were inserted into hand-carved wooden holders, forming pencils. They were called lead pencils by mistake - at the time, the newly-discovered graphite was called black lead or "plumbago," from the Latin word for lead ore - it looked and acted like lead, and it was not known at the time that graphite consisted of carbon and not lead. The value of graphite was soon realised to be enormous, mainly because it could be used to line the moulds for cannonballs, and the mines were taken over by the Crown and guarded. When sufficient stores of graphite had been accumulated, the mines were flooded to prevent theft until more was required. Graphite had to be smuggled out for use in pencils. Because graphite is soft, it requires some form of encasement. Graphite sticks were initially wrapped in string or sheepskin for stability. The news of the usefulness of these early pencils spread far and wide, attracting the attention of artists all over the known world.

 The English had a monopoly on the production of pencils since no other pure graphite mines were known and no one had yet found a way to make graphite sticks.

England continued to enjoy a monopoly on the production of pencils until a method of reconstituting the graphite powder was found. The distinctively square English pencils continued to be made with sticks cut from natural graphite into the 1860s. The town of Keswick, near the original findings of block graphite, still manufactures pencils, the factory also being the location of the Cumberland pencil museum.

2.3. Newton’s Laws

Isaac Newton was a British physicist and mathematician. Born in 1642, Newton discovered and documented for the first time three laws of motion in regard to physics. Newton’s Laws are as follows – 1st Law: An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force and an object in uniform motion tends to remain in uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force. 2nd Law: An applied force on an object equals the rate of change of its momentum. 3rd Law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Newton was also the first person to document the mechanics of universal gravitation. Newton’s work is some of the most influential in the history of modern science, many regarding him to be one of the most important scientists in human history.

Left to grow up with his grandmother when he is two, described as “idle and inattentive” in school, Isaac Newton begins to show a passion for poetry and ideas when he is seventeen. He attends Cambridge University, studying Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and ancient history, and is said to be uninterested in mathematics until he is twenty, when he picks up a book on astrology at a fair, and tries to make sense of its math. His genius is quickly revealed, as well as his aptitude for hard work, but it is not until Cambridge closes due to the plague and he returns home that he makes the discoveries of his “miraculous year”.

In 1666, at the age of twenty-four, Newton laid the foundations for calculus, an indispensable tool that will allow him to calculate planetary motion and gravitational force over time. Calculus can be applied to any situation in which a summing process is used to approximate quantities for work, volume, motion, gravitation, or arc. It is indispensable for modern engineering and building. A reclusive man, Newton describes calculus in 1671, but does not publish his discovery, and Gottfried Liebniz, working and publishing nine years later, is also considered an inventor of calculus.

Not yet 25, Newton establishes a theory of light crucial to modern astronomers, and lays the groundwork for the fundamental law of of gravity. He calculates the force that holds the planets in their orbits as varying inversely with the square of their distance from the sun.

Newton’s genius in mathematics is matched, says Einstein, by his genius in mechanics. Believing that God designed the universe to have a mathematical structure, Newton explains the movements of the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, planetary orbits, and the trajectory of projectiles in one unified set of laws. In the most influential scientific book ever written, the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (the Principia), he describes terrestrial and celestial mechanics and the three Laws of Motion.   

III. Why was Great Britain the first country to Industrialize?

From the beginning of history to the year of 1800, the work of man was done by hand tools. However, during the year of 1800 the shift from hand tools to power machinery occurred and was called the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution grew gradually out of the technical practices of earlier times. The first country to be affected by the Industrial Revolution was Great Britain.

Great Britain produced many of the most influential scientists, mathematicians and inventors in modern history. With influential people, come influential ideas, theories and inventions, some of which have the potential to change the world forever. This list will look at my pick for the top 10 British inventions which did just that. Note that although a couple of these inventions have been disputed, they are all legally recognized as British inventions.

         In the Early 1800s, The industrial age was beginning in earnest, England was the only European country that had not experienced extreme political, social and economic upheaval in the Napoleonic wars. This, of course gave England a Great headstart in industrialization. 

Also England had an advantage in that her coal mines, Factories and population centers were much closer to each other, while in counties such as France or Germany, they were often spread over hundreds of miles.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, life in Great Britain rapidly changed as the Industrial Revolution got under way. Britain led the world in industrializing for a variety of reasons, including the availability of natural resources such as coal. In addition, social changes, such as an increase in food production and a growing colonial empire, also positioned Britain well for industrialization.

Natural Resources

Before the Industrial Revolution, Britain's primary source of energy was wood. But as population grew, timber resources were exhausted and became prohibitively expensive. Britain turned to a resource it had in greater abundance -- coal. Other geographic advantages further strengthened coal's role in industrialization. For example, many of Britain's coal reserves were located near the sea, which meant that they could be easily and cheaply transported elsewhere by boat. Thomas Newcomen's steam-driven piston engine made coal extraction cheap and easy, and by 1800 as many as 2,000 of these engines were extracting coal across Britain.

Agricultural Abundance

In the 18th century, new technologies allowed Britain to produce more agriculture than ever before. Other advances, like more efficient rotating of crops, helped spur production. A greater percentage of land was also used for production. In 1700, about 20 percent of England's arable land was fallow, but this fell to just 4 percent by 1871. Cereal yields were also increased by the discovery of nitrogen, which was a critical fertilizer. All of this production fueled a growing population, with England's rising from 5.7 million in 1750 to 16.6 million a century later. Many people moved to cities, fueled urbanization and contributed needed labor for the Industrial Revolution.

Political Environment

Britain's political environment, characterized by unprecedented stability, also helped industrialization. After the Glorious Revolution, Parliament exercised more freedom from the monarch, and the country was free from unrest. Unlike other absolute monarchies, such as France, Britain's Parliament placed few restraints on the country's economy. This allowed for factories and other entrepreneurs to invest and grow, as they could not elsewhere. In Britain, industrialists were free from the worries of a revolution and were also lightly regulated.

Imperial Power

The Industrial Revolution also began in Britain partly because of the resources of the country's large colonial empire. By the early 19th century, Britain's Royal Navy was the strongest in the world, and it dominated oceanic trade. This was a huge advantage for British factory owners, because it meant that their exports abroad could be safely transported. Colonies abroad also provided British industrialists with opportunities to trade Indian teas, Chinese silks and West Indian sugar. These goods could be exchanged for industrial products produced in Britain.

IV. Inventions  of the Beginning of the 19th century

4.1. Steam    Locomotive

The first steam locomotive was invented by Richard Trevithick, a British inventor and mining engineer. Trevithick’s steam locomotive was built in 1804 in Pen-y-Darren in South Wales to carrying cargo. Trevithick sold the patents to the steam locomotive to Samuel Homfray. In one of the earliest public demonstrations, the locomotive successfully carried an impressive load of 10 tons of iron, 5 wagons and 70 men 9.75 miles between Penydarren and Abercynon in 4 hours and 5 minutes. Trevithick continued to work with steam locomotives for many more years until his death in April 1833. A full-scale working replica of his first steam locomotive was built in 1981 for the Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum, later moving to the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea. The locomotive is run several times a year along a short length of rail outside the museum.

Richard Trevithick  is a  British mechanical engineer and inventor who successfully harnessed high-pressure steam and constructed the world’s first steam railway locomotive . In 1805 he adapted his high-pressure engine to driving an iron-rolling mill and to propelling a barge with the aid of paddle wheels.

Trevithick spent his youth at Illogan in the tin-mining district of Cornwall and attended the village school. The schoolmaster described him as “disobedient, slow and obstinate.” His father, a mine manager, considered him a loafer, and throughout his career Trevithick remained scarcely literate. Early in life, however, he displayed an extraordinary talent in engineering. Because of his intuitive ability to solve problems that perplexed educated engineers, he obtained his first job as engineer to several Cornish ore mines in 1790 at the age of 19. In 1797 he married Jane Harvey of a prominent engineering family. She bore him six children, one of whom, Francis, became locomotive superintendent of the London & North Western Railway and later wrote a biography of his father.

Because Cornwall has no coalfields, high import costs obliged the ore-mine operators to exercise rigid economy in the consumption of fuel for pumping and hoisting. Cornish engineers, therefore, found it imperative to improve the efficiency of the steam engine. The massive engine then in use was the low-pressure type invented by James Watt. Inventive but cautious, Watt thought that “strong steam” was too dangerous to harness; Trevithick thought differently. He soon realized that, by using high-pressure steam and allowing it to expand within the cylinder, a much smaller and lighter engine could be built without any less power than in the low-pressure type.

In 1797 Trevithick constructed high-pressure working models of both stationary and locomotive engines that were so successful that he built a full-scale, high-pressure engine for hoisting ore. In all, he built 30 such engines; they were so compact that they could be transported in an ordinary farm wagon to the Cornish mines, where they were known as “puffer whims” because they vented their steam into the atmosphere.

4.2. Programmable Computer (1822)

The first programmable computer was invented by British mathematician and scientist Charles Babbage in the 1820s. Although he is recognized as the inventor of the programmable computer, Babbage did not live to see the machine completed. Babbage began working on a mechanical computer he called the Difference Engine in 1822, working for more than ten years with government funding. The project was eventually abandoned after losing funding after the British government lost faith in the project after prolonged delays. The machine was built for the first time from Babbage’s original designs over 150 years later in 1989. After his work on the difference engine, Babbage went on to invent the Analytical Engine, a far more complex machine than the Difference Engine, it could be programmed using punched cards. The Analytical Engine, although not built in full until 2011 by British researchers, was the first ever working programmable computer, and was the first step in the history of computing as we know it.

V. Victorian Inventions

Many people believe the majority of inventions used today are recent and created during the 20th Century, in actual fact many of the essentials used in day to day life were invented during the Victorian era.  Although most of these would now look extremely outdated, a lot of them provide the backbone for many modern day creations.

People found science exciting and were keen to progress in both technology and the development of society. Particular areas that advanced in the Victorian era centred around communication and travel, this saw a huge improvement in the standard of living.

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death, on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities and political concerns to the passage of the Reform Act 1832.

There were many important inventions and discoveries made in Britain during the Victorian period.

5.2. The first pedal bicycle (1839)

The first mechanically propelled two-wheel vehicle is believed by some to have been built by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a Scottish blacksmith, in 1839. A nephew later claimed that his uncle developed a rear-wheel drive design using mid-mounted treadles connected by rods to a rear crank, similar to the transmission of a steam locomotive. Proponents associate him with the first recorded instance of a bicycling traffic offence, when a Glasgow newspaper reported in 1842 an accident in which an anonymous "gentleman from Dumfries-shire... bestride a velocipede... of ingenious design" knocked over a pedestrian in the Gorbals and was fined five British shillings. However, the evidence connecting this with MacMillan is weak, since it is unlikely that the artisan MacMillan would have been termed a gentleman, nor is the report clear on how many wheels the vehicle had. The evidence is unclear, and may have been faked by his son.

5.3. The first paddle steamships (1839)

In 1838, Sirius, a fairly small steam packet built for the Cork to London route, became the first vessel to cross the Atlanticunder sustained steam power, beating Isambard Kingdom Brunel's much larger Great Western by a day. Great Western, however, was actually built for the transatlantic trade, and so had sufficient coal for the passage; Sirius had to burn furniture and other items after running out of coal. The Great Western’s more successful crossing began the regular sailing of powered vessels across the Atlantic. Beaver was the first coastal steamship to operate in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Paddle steamers helped open Japan to the Western World in the mid-19th century.

5.4. Penny Post System (1840)

The first postage stamps (Penny Post) came into use. The Penny Post system started on 10th January 1840 whereby normal letters could be sent for one penny anywhere in the UK. From the 6th May 1840, post could be prepaid with the first postage stamp, known as the Penny Black.

The cost of posting a letter had risen steadily over the years. In 1680, a merchant named William Dockwra organised the London Penny Post, which delivered mail anywhere in London for a penny. He also introduced the practice of postmarking letters to indicate when and where they had been posted. However, the system became so successful that the government took control of the operation in 1682 and absorbed it into the Post Office: from then on the charges gradually increased. Successive Governments had used the profits from the postal service as revenue. In particular, the money was being used to finance the almost continuous wars with France. Each time more money was needed, the cost of postage was increased. This led to increasing public dissatisfaction and criticism of the high postage rates. To send a letter from Edinburgh to London, could cost as much as a day's wages: ¾d. As a result of the public complaints, a Committee of Enquiry was set up in 1835.

Two years later, Rowland Hill published a pamphlet entitled 'POST OFFICE REFORM' . In this, he proposed a uniform postage rate of 1d, — One Penny — which would lead to an increase in correspondence and the virtual abolition of attempts to evade the postage. At this time, an indoor servant would be earning twenty-five pounds a year, that is about ten shillings a week.

Rowland Hill argued that distance had little bearing on the cost of conveying a letter. He pointed out that a very important factor in the cost was that the letters which were not pre-paid had to be personally delivered to collect the postage. The letter carriers may sometimes have had to make five or six calls until they could deliver the letter and collect the money - which was a waste of time.

Sometimes the addressee would refuse to accept the letter. Because of the high cost, many frauds were common. One was that the writer would put a code marking on the outside of the letter, so that when it was delivered, the addressee would see the code mark, understand the message from the sender, and so refuse delivery.

Rowland Hill suggested that by using a specially designed adhesive label to pre-pay the postage, huge labour costs would be saved. Later in 1837 the Select Committee of Postage was set up and by one vote only, they recommended that Parliament adopt Hill's scheme. However, postage was not reduced to One Penny at once, but from 5 December 1839, a General Fourpenny Rate was set up for letters up to half an ounce in weight. Letters up to one ounce were charged 8d and each additional ounce up to 16 ounces cost 8d. The Fourpenny Post lasted only from 5 December 1839 to 9 January 1840 and markings were applied mostly by handwriting.

The Uniform Penny Post came into force on 10 January 1840, and Rowland Hill was proved right. On the first day of the Penny Post 112,000 letters were posted, more than three times the number posted on that day the previous year. However, the stamps and the printed envelopes and covers were not available until 6 May 1840.

In 1839 there were 76 million letters posted in the United Kingdom. In 1840 after the introduction of the Penny Post there were 168 million and ten years later this had doubled to an incredible 347 million letters.

The production of the huge numbers of the adhesive labels required was possible only because of the developments in the British printing and machinery industry. At this time Britain was leading the world in industry, and was soon to be known as the Workshop of the World. The idea of the gummed label was so simple, and the design so attractive, that it was copied by postal administrations all around the world. In Britain the whole concept was generally accepted so that in 1856 it became compulsory to pre-pay postage.

The inventor of the Penny Black, Rowland Hill, was knighted by Queen Victoria for 'services to the Nation'.

5.5. Christmas card  (1843)

The commercial Christmas card as we know it originated in London in 1843. That winter, Sir Henry Cole, a civil servant who helped organize the Great Exhibition and develop the Victoria and Albert Museum, decided he was too busy to write individual Christmas greetings to his family, friends and business colleagues. He asked his friend, the painter John Callcott Horsley, to design a card with an image and brief greeting that he could mail instead.

Horsley designed a triptych, with the two side panels depicting good deeds (clothing the naked and feeding the hungry) and the center panel showing a family Christmas party. The inclusion of booze at this party got Cole and Horsley an earful from the British Temperance Movement. At the bottom of the center panel was the inscription "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You."

The card was lithographed on 5 1/8" X 3 1/4" stiff cardboard in dark sepia and then colored by hand. An edition of 1,000 cards was printed and sold at Felix Summerly's Treasure House in London for a shilling each. Of those cards, twelve exist today in private collections, including the one Cole sent to his grandmother.

Mass-printed cards soon replaced hand-written greetings in most of Europe and the United States. Americans imported their Christmas cards from England until 1875, when a German immigrant named Louis Prang opened a lithographic shop and created the first line of Christmas cards in the states.

While Prang was soon producing more than 5 million Christmas cards each year and had been dubbed the "father of the American Christmas card," his success didn't last long. (At left is an example of Prang's work.) The initial popularity of his cards led to imitations that were less expensive and featured seasonal images instead of the colorful floral arrangements Prang favored. Prang's imitators drove him out of the market in 1890, and inexpensive Christmas postcards imported from Germany ruled until World War I.

By the end of the war, the modern American greeting card industry had been born and today it supplies the 2,000,000,000+ Christmas cards that are sent every year.

5.6. Tarmac (1845)

A cursory glance at the history books would have you believe that the man behind tar macadam was Scotsman John McAdam.

While it's true he invented the method of crushed stone road surfaces he failed to make the stones stick. This was fine in the days of horse drawn vehicles, but when cars started to become commonplace the surface became inadequate.

For one thing, the jagged material meant tyres often punctured. When it rained, many roads became impassable due to ruts and mud.

At the time of his discovery, Edgar Hooley was working as a surveyor for Nottinghamshire County.

In 1901 he was walking in Denby in Derbyshire when he noticed a smooth stretch of road close to an ironworks. 

He asked locals what had happened and was told a barrel of tar had fallen from a dray and burst open. Someone had poured waste slag from the nearby furnaces to cover up the mess.

Hooley noticed this unintentional resurfacing had solidified the road - there was no rutting and no dust.

By 1902 Hooley had patented the process of heating tar, adding slag to the mix and then breaking stones within the mixture to form a smooth road surface.

Having perfected the operation, Hooley began transforming road surfaces and Nottingham's Radcliffe Road became the first tarmac road in the world. A five mile stretch was given the tarmac treatment and proved itself by being long-lasting, dust and mud free.

6.7. Sewing Machine (1846)

Few inventions have changed everyday life as radically as the sewing machine. Altering an important element of daily life, the sewing machine was an innovation on a personal yet universal level. The creation process of the sewing machine was the work of several men over a number of years, however, Elias Howe, Jr. is ultimately considered the inventor of the sewing machine. Four patents were actually issued prior to Howe's, but none of those inventors made any money.  Elias Howe's innovation, in addition to the mechanical improvements to his machine, was in putting together all of the work of his predecessors, and producing a sewing machine used around the globe. Through this he was able to gain fame and fortune as one of the great innovators of his era. 

Elias Howe, Jr. was born on a farm near Spencer, Massachusetts in 1819. He left the farm at age 16 and traveled to Lowell, Massachusetts seeking to apprentice in a machine shop. After the financial panic of 1837 he lost his job in Lowell and moved to Boston, finding work in the shop of Ari Davis making mariner's tools and scientific equipment. Due, perhaps, to the inquisitive-minded nature of the clientele, inventing dreams and gossip were often discussed in Davis' shop. Local legend has it that this is how Howe gained the inspiration for his sewing machine. When an inspiring inventor brought in a knitting machine seeking encouragement, Davis replied to the man, “Why are you wasting your time over a knitting machine? Take my advice, try something that will pay. Make a sewing machine.” The customer replied, “It can't be done,” but Howe wasn't so sure. 

There were additional factors in Howe's life which contributed to his interest in making a sewing machine. He was born with a physical disability--a type of a lameness--which increasingly made his work as a laborer more difficult and more painful. In 1843, when he was forced from work for a time due to his disability, his wife took up odd-job sewing to pay the family bills. Watching her work, he realized that the elusive sewing machine could solve all of his family's financial and physical difficulties and dedicated himself to the project.

Financial limitations were Howe's greatest obstacle—where to work, how to buy to supplies, and how to support his family without a paying job. Cambridge came to his rescue. His father had recently opened a factory in the city, and so Howe was free to set up shop in the factory for his own work. Sadly, however, the factory burned down not long after it opened. Howe was saved by a generous and business-minded Cantabrigian named George Fisher. A friend of Howe's, Fisher saw merit in Howe's idea. Fisher agreed to house Howe and his family as well invest $500 into the project in return for a half interest in the patent if one was obtained. Howe began full time work on it, and the project lived on. 

Within two years, by May 1845, Howe had a machine that was sewing seams. By July he finished his first two suits of wool clothes—one for George Fisher and one for himself. But to do more than his predecessors had been able to do, Howe had to interest the public in his machine. He put on a display, a race against five seamstresses, and his machine finished five entire seams before any of the seamstresses finished one. The crowds remained wary, however, and the protests of the local tailors proved effective—Howe did not receive a single order for his machine. 

Undaunted, Howe continued on. He finished a second machine and was awarded U.S. patent #4750 on September 10, 1846. George Fisher, his loyal investor, was growing frustrated after funding the project for more than two years without any returns. Howe sent his brother Amasa Howe to England, hoping to find a more willing potential market. Amasa met William Thomas, a manufacturer of umbrellas, corsets, and leather goods, and struck a deal in which Elias went to England to work on a new machine specifically adapted for corset making, and he sold one of his original machines to Thomas for 250 pounds sterling.

England quickly proved no better for Howe, and his troubles continued. He was never able to finis hthe adapted machine, and he sold what little he had managed to accomplish to Thomas for five pounds. Broke and unemployed in a foreign country, he got word from America that his wife was gravely ill. In order to earn enough money to travel back home, Howe pawned his remaining original machine and his patent papers. Once back in America, he suffered a terrible personal blow with the death of his wife, but in time realized that sewing machines had become popular in his absence. Even more shocking was that the machines being sold were based on his design. He quickly repurchased his machine and patent papers from the London pawnshop, and then began to send letters to the suspected patent-infringers. This ultimately forced Howe into court, which was expensive but his family and friends again came to his aid. His two major cases were against Walter Hunt and Issac Singer, and he won both times. In the case between Howe and Hunt in the 1850s, the Patent Commissioner explained why Howe was deemed the rightful king of sewing machines despite Hunt having created a machine first:

5.7. Metal  ribbed umbrella (1852)

As the Umbrella is associated with England and It's weather I thought it would be interesting to write about the inventor of the Metal Ribbed collapsible umbrella invented in England In 1852 by Samuel Fox. He was born on the 17th June 1815 in Bradwell, Derbyshire.

An umbrella is a device used for temporary shade or shelter from precipitation. They can be made by stretching a fabric or other material over a wire frame. Umbrellas carried by hand are now usually used as rain shields, although their first use was for shielding from the sun; however, as tans became more sociably acceptable, this usage declined. An umbrella made for protection from the sun, is called a parasol. These are often meant to be fixed to one point and often used with patio tables or other outdoor furniture, or on the beach for shelter fromthe sun.

Samuel Fox (1815 - 1887), an English inventor and manufacturer, invented the steel ribbed umbrella in 1852 (the ribs of the umbrella hold the fabric in place - wood or whale bone had been used as ribs before Fox's invention). Fox started the "English Steels Company," which manufactured his new umbrella.

5.8. Darwin’s Theory of   Evolution

Charles Darwin was a British naturalist born in 1809. Darwin was the first person to propose the now popular theories of evolution, natural selection and common descent. After a 5 year voyage around the globe aboard the HMS Beagle, Darwin returned to Britain finding himself a celebrity in scientific circles following distribution of his letters to various scientists at home while he had been away studying geology aboard the Beagle. Darwin went on to be elected to the Council of the Geological Society, later moving to London to continue his work and join a circle of scientists which included Charles Babbage. Darwin formed his theory of evolution over much of his life, only publishing it in his later years in his book “On t he Origin of Species” for fear of how the public would respond to what was, at the time, a highly controversial theory, since it proposed a means by which life developed on Earth without a God. Charles Darwin continued, despite controversy (and in some cases ridicule), his work until his death on 19th April 1882 from heart disease, likely brought on from years of illness, overwork and stress.

The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin's book "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it survive and have more offspring. 

Evolution by natural selection is one of the best substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.

The theory has two main points, said Brian Richmond, curator of human origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. "All life on Earth is connected and related to each other," and this diversity of life is a product of "modifications of populations by natural selection, where some traits were favored in and environment over others," he said.

London Underground (1863)

London Underground's history dates back to 1863 when the world's first underground railway, the Metropolitan Railway, opened between Paddington and Farringdon serving six intermediate stations. Since then the Underground network, affectionately nicknamed the Tube by generations of Londoners, has grown to 270 stations and 11 lines stretching deep into the Capital's suburbs, and beyond.

The development of London into the preeminent world city during the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries would not have been possible without the mobility provided by the Underground.

Much of the central London network was completed in the first 50 years, all through private development. In this period the first group of routes were built in shallow cut-and-cover tunnels along existing thoroughfares and needed plenty of vents to allow smoke and steam from the engines to escape. Around the turn of the twentieth century the development of electric traction allowed much deeper tunnels to penetrate the heart of the city, leading to a second wave of construction.

In the subsequent 50 years the focus turned to extending lines ever further into London's suburbs. Indeed, many suburbs were created by the coming of the Underground, and were even developed by the railway companies themselves, becoming known famously as Metroland. In 1933, the various private companies running different lines were nationalised and integrated into a single body, the London Passenger Transport Board.

5.9. Chocolate Bar (1866)

Up to and including the 19th century, confectionery of all sorts was typically sold in small pieces to be bagged and bought by weight. The introduction of chocolate as something that could be eaten as is, rather than used to make beverages or desserts, resulted in the earliest bar forms, or tablets. At some point, chocolates came to mean any chocolate-covered sweets, whether nuts, creams (fondant), caramel candies, or others. The chocolate bar evolved from all of these in the late-19th century as a way of packaging and selling candy more conveniently for both buyer and seller; however, the buyer had to pay for the packaging. It was considerably cheaper to buy candy loose, or in bulk.

In 1847, Joseph Fry found a way to mix the ingredients of cocoa powder, sugar and cocoa to manufacture a paste that could then be molded into a chocolate bar proper for consumption. Subsequently, his chocolate factory known as the Fry'schocolate factory, located in Bristol, England, began mass-producing them and they were very. The firm began producing the Fry's Chocolate Cream bar in 1866. Over 220 products were introduced in the following decades, including production of the first chocolate Easter egg in UK in 1873 and the Fry's Turkish Delight (or Fry's Turkish bar) in 1914. In 1896, the firm became a registered private company and was run by the Fry family, with Joseph Storrs Fry II, grandson of the first Joseph Storrs Fry, as Chairman.

Although chocolate bars had their beginnings in the 19th century, their sales grew most rapidly in the early-20th century.[4] In North America, Ganong Bros., Ltd. of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, developed and began selling their version of the modern chocolate bar in Canada by 1910. The Hershey Chocolate Company took the lead in the U.S.[4]

The world's largest "chocolate bar" was produced as a stunt by Thorntons plc (UK) on 7 October 2011. It weighed 5,792.50 kg (12,770.3 lb) and measured 4m by 4m by 0.35m.[5]

Telephone (1876)

Alexander Bell, a Scotsman living in America, invented the telephone on 7 March 1876. By  March 10th  his apparatus was so good that the first complete sentence transmitted, “Watson, come here; I want you,”was distinctly heard by his assistant. The telephone was invented by British inventor Alexander Graham Bell and patented in 1876. Bell left school at age 15, but maintained a keen interest in science and biology. Moving to London to live with his grandfather, Bell developed a love for learning and spent hours each day in study. Aged 16, he went to teach elocution and music at Weston House Academy in Moray, Scotland. A year later, Bell attended the University of Edinburgh, later being accepted into the University of London. His early experiments with sound began when he was taken to see a “speaking” automaton designed by Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen and built by Sir Charles Wheatstone.

Fascinated by the machine, Bell purchased a copy of a book written in German by Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen and built a similar automaton with his Brother. Many years later, while working at Boston University School of Oratory, Bell became interested in technology to transmit sound. Leaving his job a the university, he made the decision to pursue his personal research on the subject. In 1875, Bell created an acoustic telegraph which he patented in March 1876 following a close race with American inventor Elisha Gray, whom accused Graham Bell of stealing the invention from him. The patent office ultimately ruled in Bell’s favor and he was granted the patent for the world’s first telephone.

1885 - Single piece, ceramic toilet 

Thomas Twyford was a pottery manufacturer who invented the single piece, ceramic toilet in 1885 which was much easier to clean than previous wood or metal models.

Thomas William Twyford was born in Hanover Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent at two minutes before four in the afternoon of Sunday 23rd September 1849. He was the eldest son of Thomas Twyford and Sarah (nee Jones) He came from a family of potters who had started making commercial pottery in 1680.

In the early 1880's Thomas designed, developed and manufactured the first one piece wash out pedestal closet and called it the UNITAS. This was pioneering work in sanitaryware.

In 1887 Thomas William Twyford opened his "model" factory in Cliffe Vale near Hanley. The factory was described as "model" because it was considered by government inspectors, at the time, as a pattern for all Staffordshire factories. Each workman had his own opening window and fresh air.

VI. 20TH Century Enventions

1922 - CROSSWORD PUZZLE
The crossword puzzle, a word game, was invented by Arthur Wynne in 1913. Arthur Wynne was a journalist born in Liverpool, England. Wynne wrote weekly puzzle for the US newspaper called the New York World. The first crossword puzzle by Wynne was a diamond-shaped puzzle that was published in the Sunday New York World on December 21, 1913. The first British crossword puzzle appeared on February 1922; it was published in Pearson's Magazine.

1926 - John Logie Baird makes the first public demonstration of a mechanical television on 26 January (the first successful transmissions were in early 1923 and February 1924). Later, in July 1928, he demonstrated the first colour television. The world’s first publicly demonstrated television was invented by British inventor John Logie Baird in 1925. Logie Baird is also credited with the invention of the first fully electric color television tube. The first public demonstration of Logie Baird’s television was performed before members of the Royal Institution on 26th January 1926. He also later demonstrated the first color television on 3rd July 1928. Logie Baird’s television displayed a 30 line vertically scanned image at 5 frames per second, with later models improving the frame rate to 12.5 frames per second by the time of its first demonstration. Logie Baird’s invention paved the way for what is now nearly a century of work on the development of television technology, which remains one of the most influential inventions in history, allowing people all over the world to communicate via moving images.

1989

Sir Tim Berners-Lee writes a proposal for what will become the World Wide Web. The following year, he specified HTML, the hypertext language, and HTTP, the protocol.

 Not to be confused with the Internet (a global system of networked computers invented in the USA), the World Wide Web, invented by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, is the system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. The World Wide Web is most commonly experienced as the system behind the concept of web pages and websites. Berners-Lee first proposed the concept of the World Wide Web in March 1989, later pitching it at CERN along with Belgian scientist Robert Cailliau. CERN then publicly introduced the project in December of 1990. The first website, info.cern.ch, went live at CERN on 6th August 1991. Interestingly, Berners-Lee, although realizing the potential for immense personal profit from his invention, chose instead to gift the idea to the world, requesting no payment.

1992

The first SMS message in the world is sent over the UK's GSM network.

Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old test engineer for Sema Group (now Airwide Solutions), sent the first text message on December 3, 1992, from his personal computer to the Vodafone network to the phone of Richard Jarvis.

The text message read "Merry Christmas" (note, not “mry xmas” as it would most likely be abbreviated now, 20 years after this first text).  

Conclusion

        As a species, humans are constantly striving to achieve, to discover, and to better ourselves. From the time when we were apes up in trees we have been searching for new and better ways to do things, whether is be opening a nut with a stone, or building rockets to the moon. We are a race of inventors. Looking at Britain in particular, we have made some fantastic gadgets. Some make our lives pleasurable, some make our lives convenient, and some go as far as to save lives. Whatever their function, here is a list of  British inventions that we'd be lost without today.

        The web gives us access to a world of information right at our fingertips. Within seconds (as long as you have a good server) you can read the latest news, find the answers to your science homework, or just share photos with friends. It has connected us in ways never thought possible, and is a vital part of most people's lives. While it may be an inconvenience to us on a personal level if our internet connection goes down (I know what a state I get in if I can't go online), society has grown to dependent on it that our economy would completely collapse without it.

What is hard to believe is that the world wide web has only been around for a little over twenty years. We've had the internet longer, but it was not until 1989 when British computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee showed how hypertext could be linked to the internet to share data. He created the first server in 1990, and the web went live in 1991.

        My personal favourite (and probably a lot of others too) on the list is the chocolate bar. From a Kit-Kat to a Snickers, we all love chocolate bars. Lindor asks 'do you dream in chocolate?' My definite answer is yes, and I could be more pleased that the world's favourite sweet was invented by a Brit. 

        Until the 19th century, chocolate had only ever been consumed as a drink, but in 1847, Bristol's JS Fry & Sons came up with a breakthrough idea. By mixing cocoa powder with sugar and cocoa butter, the were able to produce solid chocolate moulded into bars. 

        Fire is a killer, and without the fire extinguishers we have today, many lives would have been lost. The first fire extinguisher on record is from 1723 and was invented by a London chemist called Ambrose Godfrey. But as it used gunpowder to make the device work, you can imagine that it was not very popular - or successful. The modern extinguisher that were are familiar with was actually invented in 1818 by a naval captain called George William Manby. The design was inspired by the need for portability when trying to put out fires in high rise buildings. 

        Trains are the mother of all public transport today. Although we may grumble about the ever increasing ticket fares, and crowded carriages, without trains, getting around would be much more difficult. But if it was not for the steam engine, which was invented in 1801, trains would never have been possible. The steam engine was a key factor in the Industrial Revolution, and without it, our world today would be very different indeed. 

People had been trying to power a piston with high-pressure steam for centuries, but the result was always an explosion, killing whoever was nearby. On Christmas Eve 1801, however, Richard Trevithick achieved the impossible, running a car called the 'Puffing Devil'. Twenty-four years later, George Stephenson invented the first passenger railway. 

        Up until the 18th century dental hygiene was appalling: tartar, cavities, tooth decay, rotting gums, it is no wonder so many skeletal remains comprise of toothless skulls. William Addis went some way to changing this during the 1770s with his invention of the toothbrush, which was made with pig or badger hair (badger hair was just for the rich), threaded through a small animal bone. He made the device while in prison, thinking that there must be a better way to clean your teeth than with a sooty rag. He was right.

        The reason we all know Edinburgh-born Alexander Bell as the inventor of the telephone is all down to timing. He patented his design just hours before his competitor. 

Today there are hundreds of TV channels and not a thing to watch, but when television first came into the home, there were only a few, and no matter what was on, everyone in the family flocked to see it. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddle_steamer

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2009/07/03/edgar_hooley_tarmac_feature.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era

http://listverse.com/2012/07/10/top-10-british-inventions-that-changed-the-world/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_William_Thomson

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

http://www.flyingmachines.org/cayl.html

http://www.foxumbrellas.com/index.php/company-history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Fox_(industrialist)